AdventureBeforeDementia

28/10/11 Hello again! We arrived on the east coast into Townsville from inland central QLD and after recovering from the shock of traffic, traffic-lights, lots of people and humidity we headed north up the coast! We made our way 450km's to Daintree in Far North Queensland where the rainforest meets the coral reef. It felt bizarre to suddenly be surrounded by lush rain-forest, tall tropical trees, rugged mountains and cane fields after so long spent in the hot dry desert! We saw beautiful deep rivers and gorgeous beaches but were unable to swim due to the possibility of a marine stinger making close and potentially deadly contact with us in the sea or of becoming dinner for a ferocious Estuarine Crocodile! We loved the signs in English and German at each bridge reminding people of the ... read more

3/10/11 Dear family and friends, After a wonderful 5 and a half months in the amazing WA, we crossed the border into the NT a week ago and this afternoon after driving 500 km's, crossed into QLD! As we have wanted to phone family and friends in WA, QLD and Victoria this week, we have spent all week asking each other, "What's the time in…?" as it is different in WA, NT, QLD and now also in Victoria as last night daylight-saving started there! Last night our phones must have thought we were in SA and the clocks went forward automatically! As we hurried this morning we realised the error and gained a whole hour, only to have to give back half an hour this evening as we crossed the QLD border! The last blog ended ... read more

Hello again! At the end of the last blog, I described to you our time at the beautiful Karijini National Park. When we left there, we spent a night in a free camp followed by a night in the industrial mining town of Pt Hedland which we left as quickly as possible! The next day we drove again through a dry semi-desert landscape then pulled off the main road and drove 6km on a dusty red unsealed road. We crossed over a sand dune and lo and behold there we found 200 caravans and grey nomads everywhere!! We had reached Eighty Mile Beach, and the Middle of Nowhere suddenly became The Place to Be!! We set up camp then wandered over one more dune to discover a most amazing beach. It was low tide and to ... read more

12 August 2011 Dear Friends and Family, It has been a long time since our last blog entry and now it seems there is a lot to say… So, hang on… We are currently sitting in a sandy red van park in Carnarvon 900km's north of Perth. The charm of the town is in its down-to-earth and unpretentious nature which I like. Just as well, as our intended 2 night stay has morphed into two weeks! Funny story, actually, in a painful kind of way… We were camped about 80km's south of Carnarvon in a free park surrounded by about 10 other travelling groups (grey nomads in vans and European back-packers in Kombis) with a toilet but no water or electricity. No problem though, as we have the means to overcome such difficulties! So happily we ... read more

Hello Everyone, A wiser blogger now sits before you in Perth, who, on the Great Nullarbor Plain learnt not only how to correctly spell the word Nullarbor, but came to understand that if one is to eat strawberry yoghurt in the dry, hot Australian bush, one will wonder with every mouthful whether that little lump in one's mouth is a piece of strawberry or a bush-fly!! But I digress... for I left you last as we headed south away from the Flinders Ranges, so that is where I shall pick this up... We headed down to the lovely Port Lincoln which is a place where some of my Nana's boat-building/fishing siblings settled from Tassie many years ago. We camped in a glorious spot in the Lincoln National Park on the edge of a cliff overlooking a ... read more